As of July 1, the state has stopped funding vital services for children, families, and communities. Providers have already been forced to cut off families from vital services and eliminate essential jobs. Some have closed their doors. Budgets are choices. Tell our leaders it’s time to choose Illinois children, families, and communities!

Medicaid has transformed health care for millions of Illinoisans–most of them children–over the past 50 years. To celebrate the anniversary of this critical program, we’ve created a new chartbook explaining Medicaid in simple terms, why it is so important, who is covered, and why it is such a good deal for Illinois–all with easy-to-understand language and infographics.

The Illinois Kids Count 2015 report, “Confronting Poverty, Creating Opportunity,” reveals that more than 600,000 Illinois children live in poverty and that child poverty rates are likely to remain high even as the economy improves. The report also identifies policies that have been effective in alleviating and reducing child poverty. Unfortunately, existing efforts at the state level would be seriously weakened by the Governor’s proposed budget, which includes deep cuts in health care, child care assistance, child protection services, and other areas.

Issues In Focus

A new Fiscal Policy Center report shows that Governor Rauner and lawmakers have a broad range of revenue options to avoid harmful cuts. Devastating cuts to services are not inevitable: They are a choice. And, choosing to raise the resources necessary to invest in children, families, and communities is the best thing we can do to propel our state toward economic prosperity.

This chartbook conveys the importance of investing in the well-being of our children and the families and communities in which they develop in order to build a stronger state now and in the future. It also makes the case for making tax and budget decisions today that shore-up instead of undermine these investments.

In addition to deep cuts to services, Governor Rauner’s cuts-only budget proposal would slash revenue sharing to localities in half — more than $600 million. Find out how much communities around the state stand to lose and why it threatens their ability to provide core services their residents’ demand.

We are a stronger Illinois when we invest in strong families, communities, and local economies. By highlighting the stories of real Illinoisans, a new series of reports from the Fiscal Policy Center shows that our state creates a brighter future when we make critical public investments. The series also estimates how programs and the communities they serve would be impacted by the loss of billions of dollars in revenue.